


Heart, and Brain, and All

by starfishstar



Series: Torchwood Files [6]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: (as they always never happen in my world!), Gen, Torchwood Three, a bit of think-y fluff about what the team are to each other, sometime fairly far along in the series but in a world where the character deaths never happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 00:25:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19188205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfishstar/pseuds/starfishstar
Summary: If Gwen is the conscience, and Tosh is clearly the brain – then what, Ianto ponders, are the rest of them?





	Heart, and Brain, and All

**Author's Note:**

> In honour of the fact that I’m IN CARDIFF RIGHT NOW (!!!), a Torchwood ficlet. 
> 
> This was an idea I had a million years ago, inspired by a line Tosh says in [“Wonderland” by nancybrown](https://archiveofourown.org/works/98076/chapters/134332). I always wanted to incorporate this into a much larger, plottier fic, and maybe I still will someday; but for now, this. :-)

 

“We know Jack brought Gwen onto the team to be his conscience,” Ianto said. He leaned against Tosh’s desk for a moment, after setting her coffee down next to her elbow. She smiled up at him in thanks.

“We know that mainly because Jack never shuts up about it,” Owen yelled from down in the autopsy room.

Ianto rolled his eyes and ignored Owen. He went on, “And Tosh is the brain, I think that’s evident to all of us.” It was a slow day in the Hub, and the rest of them were knocking about at loose ends, but Tosh was decrypting a set of alien codes she’d found in the Archive and then re-encrypting them into a code of her own devising. Simply because Tosh did that sort of thing.

At Ianto’s words, she blushed and said, “I don’t know if that’s true –”

“It’s true,” Ianto said.

“It’s true,” Gwen agreed. She was over by the monitors, because checking the monitors even on slow days, just in case, was the sort of thing Gwen did.

Tosh ducked her head, but Ianto caught a flash of an appreciative smile.

“So I wonder, what does that make the rest of us?” Ianto mused. “What missing piece did Jack think each of us could fill?”

“Don’t I get any say in this conversation?” Jack asked. He was leaning against the wall a little distance away, with his arms crossed and his chin lifted as he surveyed them all. A classic Jack pose.

Ianto and Gwen both swivelled their heads to look at him.

“No,” Gwen said.

“No,” Ianto agreed.

Jack made a huffing noise that was also classic Jack, and Gwen and Ianto grinned at each other.

“Ianto, you’re the heart,” Gwen declared.

From the autopsy room, Owen made very demonstrative retching noises.

“No you _are_ ,” Gwen said to Ianto, as she studiously ignored Owen. She’d straightened up from the quiescent monitors and now she came over to Ianto, giving him a serious, studying sort of look. “You make Jack care about things. You make him want to try harder, even when he thinks he’s ready to give up.”

“I really don’t get any say in this, do I,” Jack muttered. But Ianto could hear the fondness he was never quite able to keep out of his voice.

Gwen wrapped one arm around Ianto’s shoulders and leaned her head against his. “You make us all want to do better, really.”

Ianto saw how Jack watched them both, with that look that was at once hungrily possessive, yet also frighteningly generous, as if he would give up the whole world for them if he thought it would do them some kind of good.

“What’s Owen, then?” Ianto asked, trying to distract himself from staring back at Jack just as hungrily.

Gwen snorted, and gave Ianto’s shoulder a last pat before releasing him. “Something terrible and rude, probably.”

Ianto raised both eyebrows. “Such as…?”

They stared at each other, contemplating a range of unsavoury possibilities.

“The stomach,” Gwen said hurriedly. “Because he, erm, reminds us that we have…appetites? Or something?”

Owen’s head popped up between the railings of the autopsy room. “Hey, I think I resent that. Even if I’m not sure yet on what grounds.”

There was a beat of silence where they all looked at each other. Then Jack laughed – a big, booming Jack guffaw – and the moment was light again.

Jack pushed off from the wall, and came to sling an arm each around Ianto and Gwen. He kissed Gwen on the cheek, and Ianto at the corner of his mouth. He leaned over to cup a hand affectionately against Tosh’s cheek. And he tossed a wink over at Owen, who glared back at him, unimpressed.

“You bunch of silly kids,” Jack said, somehow managing to make it sound like a compliment. “My team. Whatever parts you are, you know I couldn’t do it without you.”

Quietly, Tosh commented, “Well, then, the brain says you’d better have a look at this.” She’d picked up one of the small handheld monitors from her desk. Its screen showed a series of tiny spikes, almost imperceptible but growing.

“See?” Jack said. He bent down to kiss the top of Tosh’s head. “Brilliant. All right, let’s go, people. Let’s figure out what it is.”

Gwen rushed back to her post at the larger monitors, and Owen emerged from the autopsy room to lend a hand. Tosh turned back to her computer, her fingers flying over the keys, and Jack leaned over her shoulder, keeping up a running commentary.

Ianto took a small moment to watch them all, rushing about and full of purpose. Like a well-oiled machine. Or, indeed, like a single body.

He smiled, and stepped into the fray to join them.

 


End file.
